1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention relate to a battery management system and its driving method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Automobiles or other vehicles employing an internal combustion engine that uses gasoline or diesel oil as a primary fuel cause severe environmental pollution such as air pollution. In order to reduce such causes of environmental pollution, much effort has recently been made to develop electric vehicles or hybrid vehicles.
An electric vehicle is a vehicle using a battery engine operated by electrical energy outputted from a battery. Because an electric vehicle uses as its major driving source a battery having a plurality of secondary cells that can be discharged under use, recharged and formed as a pack, it is advantageous in that it does not generate an exhaust gas and has little noise.
A hybrid vehicle, which is intermediate between a vehicle using an internal combustion engine and an electric vehicle, uses two or more driving sources, for example, an internal combustion engine and a battery engine. Also currently under development are hybrid vehicles that may use an internal combustion engine and fuel cells directly creating electrical energy through a chemical reaction while oxygen and hydrogen are continuously supplied, or vehicles that may use both a battery and fuel cells. For a vehicle using a battery engine in order to improve the efficiency or environmental impact of the driving source, the number of battery cells in the battery must be large, so a battery management system (BMS) is required to effectively manage the plurality of battery cells.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.